"The former King of the North, Annan Reeves, carried out a vicious assassination of the Royal Family!"
The bold black headline caught Annan's eye, and he raised an eyebrow.
What surprised him wasn't that Rikaner Kingdom had turned the truth on its head. It was how fast they had moved...
Only twelve hours had passed since last night's assassination. Rikaner Kingdom had learned of it and printed tens of thousands of newspapers in a single night?
If they were that efficient, the Ratfolk, the Demons, and Annan would never have pushed them around like this.
Unless...
"They planned this in advance?"
Ingrid said nothing. Annan kept reading.
The article claimed that the Kingdom had been invited by the Empire to attend the Victory Parade, with Mengsong, Cynthia, and Anok leading the delegation, only for Annan to send assassins after them out of spite... The details pinned everything Isa had done on Annan.
Curiously, the report listed not only Mengsong among the dead, but Cynthia and Anok as well...
In the King's "script," all three were meant to die here so Annan could be framed.
Annan hadn't expected Isa, who supposedly "yearned for freedom," to be the King's man.
The rest of the article described Annan's cruelty toward the Royal Family and the Empire's protection of him, casting Rikaner Kingdom as weak and helpless.
If that had been all, Rikaner Kingdom would merely have been trying to smear Annan. But as he skimmed ahead, he found his name across the entire spread and on other pages too...
Had they put together a special edition just for him?
Intrigued, Annan read on.
It recounted "Annan's" life from childhood onward: seizing treasures, assaulting maids, levying heavy taxes... But so much of it was false that Annan felt detached from this "denunciation of Annan."